23M dating 22F for 9 years — is it normal for her to spend 5–8 hours daily talking to our 30M flatmate while barely spending time with me?
23M here, my girlfriend is 22F. We’ve been together for 9 years.
Recently we moved into a 3BHK flat. One room is ours, and there are two male flatmates. One of them is 30 years old.
For the first couple of months, everything was normal. Then my girlfriend and this guy started talking more and more because they apparently have a lot in common personality-wise. According to her, they “just click” and can talk for hours about random things.
At first I didn’t think much of it, but one night she asked me to go to our room because she wanted “alone time” in the hall. I thought she meant alone-alone, but she stayed outside talking to this guy from 11 PM until 4 AM.
Since then, it has basically become a daily routine:
- She comes home from work, says hi to me, then immediately goes to the hall to talk to him for hours.
- Sometimes they talk till 1–2 AM.
- In the morning she wakes up early and goes outside to talk to him again.
- They cook together, eat together, sit together constantly.
She says there’s nothing romantic or physical going on, and honestly, I don’t think she’s cheating physically. But emotionally, it feels really weird to me.
I told her my issue is not “you can’t have male friends.” My issue is that I barely get quality time with my own girlfriend anymore. We used to eat dinner together and spend time together. Now it feels like I’m the third person in my own relationship.
Her explanation is that he understands her better in conversations. She says when she talks, he asks questions, reacts properly, engages deeply, etc., while I apparently don’t respond the way she wants emotionally.
I also talked to the guy directly and told him this dynamic was affecting me. He asked if I wanted him to reduce the time spent with her, and I said yes. But nothing really changed.
Now whenever I bring this up, my girlfriend says I’m overreacting and that close friendships like this are completely normal.
So I want honest opinions:
- Is this level of involvement between “just friends” normal?
- Would you feel uncomfortable in my position?
- Is this emotional cheating, or am I being insecure?